Legislative Corner:

• What's Happening with Mandated LTCI Producer Training
• Long-Term Care Trust Account Act of 2007
• Part B Premium Increasing 17% in 2008
• Lifespan Respite Care Act of 2005
• GA, MA, MI, NE, SD and TX Announced for Own Your Future Campaign
• President Signs Budget Bill Into Law February 8, 2006
• Budget Bill Passes House 216-214 on February 1st !!
• HHS Announces Second Phase of Long Term Care Awareness Campaign Demonstration
• Health Savings Accounts (Includes Spousal Contribution Ruling 2005)
• Estate Recovery Hits GA and TX Fall 2004
• Legislative Corner Archive

Headline News:

• Lawsuit for Failure to Provide Evidence of LTCI Advice
• New Study Shows LTCI Tops Growth in Employee Benefits
  One-third of Fortune 100 employers offer optional LTC plans, and 39% provide disability coverage. Long-term care insurance is the fastest-growing voluntary benefit at these companies, up 61% over the past four years. Disability insurance was up 28% during the same period. Click here for more.
• Medicare Releases Final Rules for New Drug Program
  Click here for a one-page overview of the Medicare RX program to be implemented in 2006.
  Click here for the final rules.
• Men More at Risk for Parkinson's Disease, Lou Gehrig's Disease
  Ever get objections from the man of the household that he won't need LTC?  This is a great article with scientific evidence that men have a 50% greater chance to develop Parkinson's disease than women. More>>
• BLUECROSS BLUESHIELD OF TENNESSEE ANNOUNCES $67 MILLION PREMIUM PAYBACK
  Great Opportunity for Employers to Use the Savings to Keep Key Executives Happy with 10-Pay LTCI Plans! More>>
• FDA Approves New Drug for Alzheimer's
  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday gave its approval to memantine, which has long been sold in Europe. More>>
• CNA Ceases ALL Individual LTCI Sales October 3, 2003 (PDFfile)
• Conseco Emerges from Bankruptcy September 10, 2003
  Conseco, Inc. announced today that its sixth amended joint plan of reorganization under Chapter 11, which was confirmed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court yesterday, has become effective. More>>
• Senate Reaches Compromise Plan for Medicare Prescription Benefit
  Tragically, the huge expense of adding drugs to Medicare is a major factor impeding consideration of a relatively inexpensive policy that is objectively much more badly needed--above-the-line tax deductibility for long-term care insurance. More>>
• UNUMProvident announced Thursday that it is exiting the independent LTC distribution business effective this Fall per press release 5/30/03.
  By extension, all independent sub-GA and broker contracts will also be canceled by UNUMProvident. To continue writing individual LTC insurance with UNUMProvident, brokers will have to individually re-contract with UNUMProvident directly. More>>
• INDIANAPOLIS — Insurance and finance company Conseco Inc., facing $6.5 billion in debt and a federal investigation of its accounting practices, filed for Chapter 11 protection in the third-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.... Company officials have said Conseco's insurance subsidiaries have remained fundamentally sound despite the parent company's debt problems..... More>>
• New Nursing Home Compare Study Released 11/12/02
• Largest Employer in the USA establishes LTC insurance program!
• SOA's 3rd Annual LTCI Conference in Las Vegas (PDF File)
• Baby Boomers "Retirement Reality Check"
• 10% LTC Tax Credit Given to Louisiana Residents
• Phyllis Shelton's response to Jonathan Clements, Wall Street Journal, 1/29/02 How Much Insurance Is Needed To Help Cover Long-Term Care?
• Mississippi Medicaid Program in Limbo
• The growing appetite of senior entitlements
• Should YOU Consider Long-Term Care Insurance?
• Funding LTC with Life Settlements
• More News>>

Articles:

• New Information on Who Needs LTC in America
  
• NPR Interviews Phyllis Shelton
  
  
• Is There More Than One Way to Skin the Inflation Cat?
  

• Harvard Magazine interviews Phyllis Shelton for LTCI article

• There's No Place Like a Nursing Home: (guest article from Karen Shoff, author)
  I hate it here, I want to come home." Until last month, John Burns, 93, was a healthy, active man who did all the shopping, errands, and cooking for himself and his wife, Emma. Then he broke his leg and ended up in a nursing home. More>>

• Test Your Knowledge on Reverse Mortgages (Guest article from Mary Ann Lacey-Gray, President, UMS, Inc.) Finding the premium to fund your strategies has always been an obstacle to overcome. Even your wealthier prospects will hesitate or look for tax-deductible ways to fund their insurance or accumulation and investment programs. Look no further! Thanks to HUD, the new Home Equity Conversion Mortgage Program (HECM) is available to them. More>>

• I have long been a fan of Harry Margolis, "The Elder Law Report" and now this online newsletter, ElderLawAnswers. You can get a free subscription to this online publication as a site visitor, and youcan even get state specific information on the website, which is concise and so helpful. I was very pleased to have my book reviewed on the site on August 11th. Here's the link to the review. And it's a great site if you're looking for a qualified elder law attorney!

• Guest author, Eileen Tell (SVP - LTCG) responds to "Buying a Security Blanket - Revisited", WSJ, 6/9/03

• The Sickening Rise of Health Costs
  Thanks to the Center for LTC Financing for bringing this article to my attention. BusinessWeek Online has a great article by Ellen Hoffman May 5, 2003, entitled "The Sickening Rise of Health Costs". She quotes a financial planner's recommendation that people "look into buying long-term-care insurance at a relatively young age -- in your 40s or 50s -- because premiums increase as you get older (see BW Online, 9/21/00, 'The Hidden Costs of Long-Term Care Policies'). more>>

• 2002 Long-Term Care Insurance Market Trends
  I was asked to give a speech this year on long-term care insurance market trends. To really prepare myself, I decided to survey my 6,000+ e-mail database. I wanted to know the benefit and premium characteristics of what was being sold, and I wanted to know attitudes conveyed by consumers and agents. The respondents to my survey averaged two apps per week, with 62% selling at least one per week, so my survey attracted “serious” LTCI agents. more>>

• Are YOU Well-Trained in Long-Term Care Insurance?
  The long-term care insurance industry is finally starting to mature, and I like to think I've had a little to do with that. When I started selling long-term care insurance in 1988 and even when I started my training and consulting business in 1991, I felt as though I were on a lonely planet, watching most everyone else whiz past. In 2002, there's no room in the parking lot on the LTCI planet. Today, there is tens of thousands of professionals selling long-term care insurance: 37,000 agents have been through my private or corporate training classes. But of all the people who are selling this much-needed financial and family protection product, I worry about how many of them REALLY know what they're selling? more>>

Due Diligence Corner:

Ever hear the advice to allow affluent clients to self-insure the inflation benefit since buying inflation means doubling the premium in many cases? Let's examine this idea carefully: Click here - you may be surprised!

LTC Consultants provides long-term care insurance training to agents and educates consumers with information about long-term care insurance. This website contains reports and articles about caregiving, assisted living, nursing homes, aging, senior living and elder care, home health care and other long-term care related articles. Also read excerpts from Phyllis Shelton’s Long-Term Care: Your Financial Planning Guide, with articles about life insurance and annuity policies, viatical and life settlements, reverse mortgages, Medicaid for Long-Term Care patients, senior benefits including Medicare and Medicare Supplements.